Frustrated by a lack of informed and honest review websites covering a wide range of electronic music, I write them myself.

Wednesday, October 1, 2014

AstroPilot - Here And Now

Altar Records: 2010

Dmitriy Redko was a busy body in 2010 – or rather, his new home on Altar Records was busy for him, releasing a whopping four LPs under the AstroPilot banner. Man, label head DJ Zen must have thoroughly enjoyed Fruits Of The Imagination to go all-in on whatever else the Siberian psy guy had stored up. Since this has a latter catalogue number following Solar Walk, Shamanium, and Mitra, I’ll assume Here And Now was the current stuff Redko was working on; the title’s a pretty safe hint too.

AstroPilot’s work ethic has earned him a solid reputation within the psy scene, capably flitting various sub-genres like few others. His tracks have found homes on ambient compilations, psy dub collections, progressive trance mixes, and even tech-plonk house showcases. Okay, not that last one, but it wouldn’t surprise me if Redko’s got some stored away, gathering digital dust on a harddrive untl he decides to go house (they all go house, eventually). While I wouldn’t put him quite on par with some of Ultimae’s Solar stars, he’s definitely up in their leagues, and might even have released LPs there if he hadn’t joined Altar. Well, that whole ‘not exclusively a chill-out producer’ part probably didn’t help either. That’s why you make multiple aliases, mang!

Anyhow, let’s focus on the here and now with Here And Now. Mr. Redko’s mostly taking on prog psy’s domain with this album, though he doesn’t limit himself there either, throwing in breaks and even ...glitch-step breakcore? Wha...? Oh, it’s a collaboration with another Russian psy guy named Pharmacore. Whichever style you call it, at least you can play it at both 88 and 176 bpm!

That’s just an outlier though, a bit of experimentation tacked on to album’s end. Like I said, prog psy’s the name of AstroPilot’s game on Here And Now, and he serves up a bevy of choice cuts for the synapses. I mean, geez, Karma Cleaner! What a lush sounding track this is! Solid pumping groove, glowing goa trance licks, evocative ethnic singing coming in from astral planes, and widescreen production that’s utterly bonkers in how expansive it makes this track sound. Prog psy’s not supposed to sound this big. Other tracks likeHiding Wings and Time Tides are equal to Karma Cleaner’s bar, though a bit more straight-forward where this style’s concerned.

Other tunes mix the formula further, with Memories Maze throwing in breaks at the start before unleashing some propulsive psy action; meanwhile Indigo goes for the full-on breakbeat action. And speaking of full-on, there’s bloody ‘buttrock’ guitar thrash in Variants, and when did this album suddenly get all fierce and nasty on us? The ramp in energy was so gradual, I hardly noticed it.

I knew AstroPilot was a good producer, but that was based off his Solar Walk material. I had no idea he could offer just as awesome yang to those albums’ yins. Get on Here And Now if you’ve even the slightest interest in psy music. Trust.